Ominous signs

My usual running spots are Burnaby Lake and the Brunette River trail. Metro Vancouver has in recent years provided copious new signs that provide maps, reminders and advise one of the park rules. They also strongly imply you may be lucky to get out alive as I will demonstrate below.

The Brunette River trail is an approximately two km long gravel service road used by Metro Vancouver parks vehicles and CN Rail trucks (the road parallels the train tracks, located not too far off behind a line of trees). It’s a nice place to run because the road rarely has traffic on it and is nice and wide, accommodating runners, pedestrians and cyclists with room to spare. Most of the time.

Upon entering the roadway you are currently greeted by these signs:

fire bad, water bad

  1. Venturing off the trail may result in you drowning.
  2. Venturing off the trail may result in you burning to death.
  3. Maybe both.

If you make it to the end of the trail and successfully enter Burnaby Lake Regional Park, you will find this sign at the Cariboo Dam:

water still bad

You at least now know why you may find yourself drowning if you risk venturing off the trail. It’s the unpredictable killer dam upstream unleashing fatal torrents of water.

The Cariboo Road entrance to Burnaby Lake is replete with signs. I would probably exhaust the disk space of this site trying to host images all of them. Here’s one set you will see as you pass through the gate to get in:

fire and bicycles bad

  1. No vehicles here. You will not be run over. Technically that’s not true because parks vehicles have free reign so you can in fact be run down by one of those little two-seater jobs they tool around in.
  2. No cyclists. You will not be knocked down by some dope on a bike. Technically this is also not true because people break this rule all the time. They often seem to be the worst cyclists, too.
  3. More “you may burn to death by going off the trail.”

You may notice another post festooned with signs beyond this one. Let’s take a closer look.

bears bad

  1. Pets are leashed so no worries about some dog getting in your way or attacking you. This rule is broken so regularly that the sign should actually read “Pets MUST be leashed (haha).”
  2. See above, re: cyclists. Some entrances to the park have two or three NO CYCLING signs. Cyclists cannot read.
  3. You will be eaten by a bear. This one doesn’t mention whether or not you should stay on the trail so you’re probably going to get eaten no matter where you go.

In summary, while at Burnaby Lake Regional Park, if you venture off the trail you may find yourself chased by a bear, catch on fire and then get swept away in an unexpectedly raging river. At least the raging river will put the fire out. There’s probably another bear in the river, though, waiting for a fish, you or an especially clumsy cyclist. You’re pretty much doomed no matter what.

To quote one of the other signs I didn’t get a picture of: Enjoy your visit!